


i watched our bodies turn to ghosts

by leonshardt



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Hallucinations, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Non-Linear Narrative, relationships are open to interpretation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-28
Updated: 2016-07-28
Packaged: 2018-07-27 07:58:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,495
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7610023
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leonshardt/pseuds/leonshardt
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“She’s just… there,” Angela says, for lack of a better way to explain. “I don’t think she wants to leave me alone.” </p><p>McCree gives her a long look from under the brim of his hat. Finally, he says, “Well, maybe she misses you too,” and Angela’s heart catches in her throat.</p>
            </blockquote>





	i watched our bodies turn to ghosts

**Author's Note:**

> although this fic technically contains mercy/pharah, it is more about angela and the relationships she formed in overwatch. also generally speaking i reject blizzard's version of timeline, so a lot of things might not match up with canon.
> 
> warnings for abuse, implied rape, and ptsd.

 

It hits Angela in that moment, that phantom voice in her head that only comes when she’s too tired to keep up her defenses, between late nights and early mornings in the lab when she’s fighting both exhaustion and frustration.

“Angela,” Ana’s voice says, “You know I always hate to see you so sorry. What is it all for? I know you of all people wouldn’t have left me behind.” She is stern but smiling just like Angela remembers, warm and bright past the halo of fluorescent lights above the table, and if Angela looks, really _looks_ , it’s like she isn’t really there at all.

Angela’s fingers slip on the scalpel; bright pain lances through her hand, and she closes her fist so she won’t have to see the red.

“Are you-- are you alright, Angela?” Fareeha asks, rising from her seat, and she makes a little abortive movement like she means to put her hand on Angela’s shoulder but then thinks better of it, and then she falters, letting her hand fall limply to her side. Ana looks on silently, the outline of her form wavering in the light.

And all of a sudden Angela can’t breathe, can’t speak, can’t look Ana’s daughter in the eyes which are too wide and too full of concern, and still there’s that tattoo, familiar yet unfamiliar, dark and angular and on the _wrong_ side of her face, so Angela turns away and covers her mouth with her sleeve before the sob can get out. And it’s just not fair, it’s not fair to either of them, so, no, she’s not alright, she hasn’t been alright in a long time, but there are some things you just don’t say aloud, because, because--

Because whether she can accept it or not, Ana Amari is dead.

 

 

She cries the first time someone dies on her table, ten hours into a procedure with her arms elbow-deep in blood and guts, the flatline droning on beside her like some kind of funeral dirge. She stands still, as if she is in shock, but she isn’t really in shock, couldn’t be, because all her training up to now was supposed to prepare her for moments like these. She’s young. She’s still learning, that it’s just another aspect of saving lives-- you can’t save everyone.

Ana is there. The older woman had taken to sitting in the viewing deck of the operating room when she could spare the time, watching Angela work, or napping after a hard mission. She is awake now, and looking at Angela with a sort of calmness that Angela wishes she could mirror back. Ana just shakes her head slowly, and her words from the day before come back to Angela, unbidden.

_Save who you can, but don’t forget those you lose. Remember them, and remember that you made a difference._

Angela wipes her eyes, steps away from the corpse on the table, watches as Ana leaves the room. And, oh, wouldn’t it be great to just make a difference, for once in her life?

She doesn't cry a second time.

 

 

A year after she joins Overwatch, she finds McCree hunched over the sink in the back room of the medbay with his fingers jammed down his throat. He’s making a wet retching sound, which breaks down into ragged, unsteady breathing as he braces himself against the counter.

“Jesse?” Angela says, her voice carrying through the silence. She must have startled him, because McCree jerks upright, eyes wide in panic. His arms are shaking, and he looks as if he might collapse any second.

“Sorry,” he says. There’s a rough, pained quality to his voice. He looks away then, ashamed.

His clothes are crumpled, torn at the collar of his shirt, and Angela can just make out the bruises starting to form on his neck, disappearing down his collarbone in angry red splotches. She feels sick to her stomach. She had never seen McCree like this, in the time she had known him. They had both joined Overwatch at the same time, and they were the youngest members on active duty. She had liked him from the moment they were introduced; he was charming in that youthful sort of way, a little awkward because he was still growing into his limbs, but he laughed with his whole body and she liked that.

Angela hates seeing him like this now, all that gangly confidence broken down into shuddering, cracked lines.

“Are you-- can I-- I can tell Jack,” she says, voice unsteady, and McCree shakes his head quickly.

Angela swallows. “Ana, then, she’ll understand, Ana will know what to--”

“No,” McCree says in a quiet wrecked voice, “Just-- don’t tell no one. It was all m’ fault. I--” he cuts off, like he just can’t get the words out, and sinks down to the floor in a heap, his legs folding under him. “I deserved it,” he says softly, and then buries his face in his hands.

After a moment, Angela crouches down by his side. She brings her hand to his cheek slowly, telegraphing her movements, and something in her heart breaks when McCree flinches as she cups his cheek, like he hadn’t expected anyone to touch him so gently ever again.

(She’s still learning: you can fix broken bodies, but you can’t fix broken people.)

 

 

“Leave me alone,” Angela says, not even bothering to look up.

“Maybe I will,” says Ana’s voice. “If that’s what you really want.”

The thing is, Angela’s not sure what she really wants, these days.

 

 

Ana gives her her first gun.

“You have good hands, and a good eye,” she says. “There will come a day when you will have to use them to protect those you care for. And when the time comes, do not hesitate.”

Angela weighs the gun in her hand.

(Do not hesitate.)

  

 

“She gave me the gun first, but I couldn’t bring myself to use it until Commander Reyes taught me how,” Angela admits one day, as she and McCree are waiting in the helicarrier after a mission.

McCree grunts, chewing on the end of his cigar. “Well, Reyes sure as hell didn’t teach me how to shoot. He just gave me a chance, ‘s all. Ana was the one who showed me how not to waste it,” he says.

Angela nods, and they sit in silence the rest of the way back to base.

 

 

Fareeha does not look at Angela with either pity or fear; it’s almost refreshing. To her, Angela is everything her mother did not want her to be, and everything Fareeha grew up knowing. Fareeha has changed, in the recent years.

But Angela has changed, too. She is no longer the young woman who fell in love to the sound of sniper rifle fire, who revolutionized modern medicine in the span of one night, who saved a dying man from the blade of his brother just to see if she could. She is learning how to not just save others, but to save herself. She is learning how to hesitate.

She does not wonder what Ana would think of them, now.

 

 

“You’re wrong,” Angela says, “I would have left you behind.”

The sunlight is too bright. Ana’s sitting on the park bench next to her, watching her feed the pigeons. Angela can see distant tree leaves rustling through Ana’s skin, rays of sunshine parsing through her hair. The other woman’s not corporeal, not really _there_ , so Angela shouldn’t feel her gaze burning through her like she’s caught in the crosshairs of her scope, and yet.

Ana arches an eyebrow. “Now, I know you’re only saying that because you don’t want to blame Jack.”

“I don’t blame Jack.”

A soft sigh. “Is that what you’ve been telling yourself?”

Angela stands abruptly and the pigeons scatter, leaving a few stragglers pecking at crumbs on the fringes. She digs the heels of her palms to her eyes. When she looks back at the bench, it’s empty, and she’s alone again, surrounded by the soft cooing of birds.

 

  

“She’s just… there,” Angela says, for lack of a better way to explain. “I don’t think she wants to leave me alone.”

McCree gives her a long look from under the brim of his hat. Finally, he says, “Well, maybe she misses you too,” and Angela’s heart catches in her throat.

 

  

“Are you alright, Angela?” Fareeha asks again, much later, and Angela knows she doesn’t have to hide the shaking of her hands around her, not when they’re physically so close and closer yet in other ways, but still, some habits are hard to break. Fareeha’s hand is gentle against her bare shoulder, and Angela thinks, once again, _save who you can._

“Yes,” Angela says, rolling over in bed to face her. “Yes, I’m just fine.” And there’s a warm feeling that blooms in her chest, because in that moment Fareeha sees her as she really is, and Fareeha believes her.

 


End file.
